142 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II 
contracts are entered into not on the faith of the agent but 
on the public faith, and it has been decided in Haldimand’s 
case! that the Governor is one of those servants against 
whom it is impossible to succeed in any action on a Govern- 
ment contract. Nor has the Governor the power of granting 
a flat to a petition of right, as has the Sovereign in this 
country. It is to be presumed that it is considered that the 
prerogative is needless for the safe government of the country, 
and this is probably the case. But the result is very incon- 
venient, and has caused some feeling of friction between the 
Imperial and the Colonial Governments, especially that of 
Western Australia. For as the Governor cannot grant a fiat, 
if a petition of right is presented it must be sent home for 
submission to the Secretary of State, who takes the advice 
of the law officers of the Crown, and in accordance with their 
advice, which is given wholly as a matter of law in accordance 
with the invariable practice in this country to grant a fiat 
if a colourable case of contract or the withholding of property 
is disclosed, the petition is or is not submitted to the King 
with the advice to issue the fiat : if the fiat is issued the 
writ is endorsed ‘ Let Right be done in the Supreme Court 
of the Colony of ———’, and the petition so endorsed is 
returned to the petitioner, who proceeds then with his action 
in the Courts. 
It was naturally contended at the Colonial Conference of 
1897 by the Premiers then present, that in such a case the 
advice of the local Government should govern the question 
of the grant or the refusal of a fiat.2 It was suggested that, 
granting the appropriateness of the granting of a fiat being 
submitted to the Sovereign, yet it was a derogation from 
the principles of responsible government that a fiat should 
be granted on any advice other than that of the responsible 
* Macbeath v. Haldimand, 1'T. R. 172. Palmer v. Hutchinson, 6 App. Cas. 
619; Dunn v. Macdonald, [1897] 1 Q. B. 555. In cases of tort no fiat can be 
granted, as there is no liability of the Crown; a doctrine followed in Canada, 
see KR. v. Macfarlane, 78. C. R. 216; R.v. Mackay, 88S. C. R. 1. 
' Cf. Harrison Moore, Commonwealth of Australia,’ p. 165. There was 
a New South Wales case in 1863, a South Australia case in 1894, and a 
series in Western Australia from 1897 to 1909,